"It was actually a dream that my partner in Nora, Liz Boone, had," says Toby Barlow, who, in addition to writing most of the non-recipe text for the book, is also its co-publisher along with Boone through their Nora Modern imprint. He is also a partner in Gold Cash Gold.

The creative team also included photographer and Joebar proprietor Joe Vaughn, illustrator Don Kilpatrick and designer Joe Benghauser,

Work on the book began in late 2015, a year after Detroit exited bankruptcy and just as the city's restaurant scene was really revving up.

"We were very caught up in the kind of restaurant explosion that happened at the beginning of 2016," Barlow says. "For people who had been eating here for the last decade, it was a really exciting time."

For the book's creators, those unpredictable swings echoed the changes sweeping through the city at the heart of the book.

That's one reason why Marsha Music's poem to would-be gentrifiers, "Just Say Hi – The Gentrification Blues," is included as part of the book's introduction.

The other reason, Barlow says, is that the creators were very cognizant of the fact that four white, male chefs were chosen to represent the culinary scene of a majority black city.

"While this is just a sliver of a community, we definitely want to acknowledge and keep working on issues of inclusion and bringing Detroit together," says Barlow. "Unfortunately, if you went around Detroit in 2016 and tried to find new restaurants that were opened, you'd find a lot of white dudes opening them. These were the restaurants that were making headlines at the time."

Barlow says it's possible that "4 Detroit" could turn into a series of cookbooks and he hopes that the diversity of chefs included – and those opening restaurants in Detroit –increases with each potential take.

The four chefs featured in the '4 Detroit' cookbook are Dave Mancini of Supino Pizzeria, left; Andy Hollyday of Selden Standard; Josh Stockton, formerly of Gold Cash Gold; and Brad Greenhill of Takoi.(Photo: Joe Vaughn)

An excerpt from '4 Detroit'

The following is an excerpt from the Toby Barlow-penned introduction to the cookbook "4 Detroit: Four Chefs. Four Courses. Four Seasons." Reprinted with permission of Nora Modern. Copyright 2017.

This was a city that was born to grow things; after all, the old neighborhood Black Bottom got its name because the soil was so rich and dark. Life is a hungry and tenacious thing. Seeds spread out, blowing in the winds up above Palmer Park, Brightmoor, Del Ray. They reach their patch of earth, vines make their clever perches and climb, flowers lure the bees and petals bloom, the tomatoes fatten, fruits ripen, pumpkins grow.

How long before people started to organize all this possibility into something that could help their city? Of course it was going to happen. Abandoned lots can only lie around for so long before someone says, “Hey, I’m growing something delicious here.” It’s hard-wired into our DNA. It is a beautiful thing when people start using their gardens to grow the flavors they desire.

Detroit’s urban farmers now grow more than 100 different varieties of fruits and vegetables, mostly for their own personal use – the Bangladeshi residents of Hamtramck have elaborate gardens that climb up and over their fences, filling the air with a wealth of dense, rich fragrances, while across town in the Georgia Street Collective, Mark Covington is busy harvesting honey, raising goats, and pruning the community orchard. Greg Willerer’s Brother Nature garden has expanded beyond its original roots north of Corktown to a farm north of the city that grows an abundance of fresh herbs, lettuce, and vegetables. You can find him on any Saturday down at Eastern Market. Ashley Atkinson has dedicated years to sewing this network of bootstrap gardeners together, to promote more cultivation, more variety, more market connections for the growers, and using all of that to help build a healthier community.

In the end it only took a few growing seasons between that major surge in Detroit’s gardening and the renaissance of the city’s restaurant scene. One can almost see it as some subconscious cause and effect. The city had become a literal cornucopia of fresh vegetables bursting from community gardens and neighborhood plots. So it was only a matter of time before it inspired some restaurants.

It’s important to say this: Restaurants don’t save a city, any more than bagel cafes or pie places or letterpress shops; they’re all just small bricks in a part of what we’re building. We still need better schools, we need more public safety, and we need job training and opportunity. We need someone to crack the code on how to relieve Detroit residents from high auto insurance. We need new ideas in public transportation. We need a lot. But for some reason, perhaps real, perhaps only imagined, it’s easier to believe all these solutions will be found now that there are so many good places to eat.

'Feed the Resistance' brings politics to the kitchen

The new 'Feed the Resistance' cookbook features recipes from Detroit food activist and FoodLab Director Devita Davison as well as frequent Detroit conversation starter Tunde Wey.(Photo: Chronicle Books)

Another new book out this fall features two big names from Detroit food activism circles.

Published in October, "Feed the Resistance: Practical and Purposeful Recipes + Ideas for Getting Involved," by Julia Tershen (Chronicle Books, $14.95) is a delicious guide to political engagement, peppered with recipes and essays from the acclaimed cookbook author and two dozen additional chefs, writers and food activists who contributed to the book.

FoodLab Detroit Director Devita Davison shares a recipe for her mother's famous Southern-style boiled cabbage and turkey, while traveling Nigerian cook and anti-racism provocateur Tunde Wey, a former Detroiter, rhapsodizes on food and sex in an essay that sets the dinner table as an important stage for enacting personal and political change.